The cover shows Eminem looking young, clean-shaven, almost soft — a stark contrast to the bleached-blond menace he’d become. The music? He rapped over mellow, jazzy, Nas- and AZ-inspired beats, with a calm, multi-syllabic flow. He wasn’t being funny or violent — just earnest.
Marshall had just lost his job as a cook at Gilbert’s Lodge, his girlfriend was pregnant with Hailie, and he was living in a tiny, cockroach-infested apartment on Detroit’s east side. He and his friend/producer, the Bass Brothers, scraped together about $1,500 to press maybe 500–1,000 cassettes and records. eminem first album
Before the world knew him as Eminem, before Dr. Dre, before “My Name Is,” a hungry, angry 24-year-old Marshall Mathers released an album called in 1996. And it pretty much failed — spectacularly. The cover shows Eminem looking young, clean-shaven, almost